Bite-sized inspiration

"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."

Dr. Leo Buscaglia
(1924-1998); Professor, Author

A thought to live by ...

What would you do if you knew you could not fail?

Bite-sized inspiration

True love is not a feeling by which we are overwhelmed. It is a committed, thoughtful decision.

--M. Scott Peck

Bite-sized inspiration

"Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best." --Henry Van Dyke

Bite-sized inspiration

"I've come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that's as unique as a fingerprint - and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you."

--Oprah Winfrey, O Magazine, September 2002

Bite-sized inspiration

"The world is full of suffering.
It is also full of overcoming it."

--Helen Keller

Bite-sized inspiration(s)

Some favorite quotations about art:

Any great work of art... revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world - the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air. --leonard bernstein


Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one. --stella adler

All art requires courage. --anne tucker


Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale 'til its appropriate liberator comes to set it free. --ralph waldo emerson

Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on the wings of misery and travail. --theodore dreiser

Art is when you hear a knocking from your soul -- and you answer. --star riches

Bite-sized inspiration

"The ship of my life may or may not be sailing on calm and amiable seas. The challenging days of my existence may or may not be bright and promising. Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If I insist on being pessimistic, there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed."

--Maya Angelou

***

Life is short and we do not have too much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel the way with us; so be swift to love, and make haste to be kind, and the blessing of God: whose creativity crafted you, whose love leads and saves you, and whose holy breath sustains you, be ever with you, and all the world, this day and evermore. Amen.

(Author unknown; from my friend's memorial service)

Bite-sized inspiration

live with intention.
walk to the edge.
listen hard.
practice wellness.
play with abandon.
laugh.
choose with no regret.
continue to learn.
appreciate your friends.
do what you love.
live as if this is all there is.

--mary anne radmacher

Bite-sized inspiration

I am only one, but still I am one.
I cannot do everything, but still I can do something;
and because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something I can do.

--Helen Keller

Bite-sized inspiration

If we study the lives of great men and women
carefully and unemotionally
we find that, invariably,
greatness was developed, tested and revealed
through the darker periods of their lives.
One of the largest tributaries of the River of Greatness
is always the Stream of Adversity.

--Cavett Robert

Bite-sized inspiration

You have made us for yourself, Lord, and
our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

--St. Augustine of Hippo

Bite-sized inspiration

If it is to be, it is up to me. If peace is what we need, I must be the one to plant the seed. If love is what we desire, I must be the one to light the fire. If happiness is what we demand, I must be the one to make and carry out the plans.

--Author unknown

Bite-sized inspiration

I don't claim anything of the work. It is His work. I am like a little pencil in His hand. That is all. He does the thinking. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it. The pencil has only to be allowed to be used.

--Mother Teresa, interviewed by TIME magazine

(on a related note of allowing our gifts to be used for what they were intended to maximum efficiency, check out this video.)

Bite-sized inspiration

You will find as you look back upon your life that
the moments when you have truly lived
are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.

--Mother Teresa

Bite-sized inspiration

One comes to appreciate the reality that there can be no "wes" and "theys" in our lives, but only brothers and sisters -- all children of God -- all sacred and dignified. Destruction of any one of these God-gifts means a certain destruction of oneself and a mystery that is gone forever from this small fragile world.

--Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Artistic Soul

I'd like to gradually fold in some of my work stretching back over time. This was written in October 2007.

Centuries of warfare
have torn down the world
The rape of humanity:
Hatred unfurled

With widespread suffering
and desperate lament,
Hope is beaten down;
vengeance spent

But within caustic clashes
holding hostage countless lives
the artist selects his canvas
and with colors, hope revives

In a charred and smoking landscape
he swirls shades to uplift souls
his stream of inspiration restores:
shattered spirits become whole.

In no way do I wish to oversimplify the healing process after traumatic experiences, but I do want to speak to the power of artists as healers, whether they be painters, musicians, photographers, writers or sculptors. Their work brings sense back into chaos or simply allows us to sit with the questions, knowing we are not alone and feeling connected to a humanity that has triumphed over suffering.